46 A.2d 586 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1946
Submitted March 13, 1946. The question in this appeal is whether a quarter sessions court has jurisdiction to try title to $2,500 after it came into the hands of the county treasurer and was deposited by him in the general fund to the credit of the county, on the bare petition of one claiming ownership. This jurisdictional question was properly raised by defendants in the court below under the Act of March 5, 1925, P.L. 23, 12 PS 672, 673. An order adverse to the defendants, on this preliminary question, gives rise to this appeal.
The proceeding originated in plaintiff's petition, in which he averred: that state police officers raided 116 East Race Street in Pottsville on July 13, 1935, and took $2,500 from the pocket of petitioner's coat then hanging on the wall of one of the rooms on the premises; that the money taken is now in the treasury of Schuylkill County. Averring that the money taken was his, petitioner prayed for its return to him. On these, the only facts averred, the quarter sessions court was without authority to take jurisdiction of the question when raised on petition and rule as original process. Unless authorized by statute, "a rule is not properly original process in any case, but is auxiliary, and for the facilitating of jurisdiction already acquired." Short v. Board of Sch. Dist.,
We reach the same conclusion if we go outside the record, as did the lower court, and assume that the fund was seized in a raid on a gambling house. Money is subject to seizure, along with gambling devices if it is an integral part of the illegal gambling operation when seized. Rosen v. Supt. Police LeStrange,
Here, there is nothing in the record to indicate that the quarter sessions ever had control of the fund. Claimant's petition does not aver a return made to that court, by the officer who seized it, or any other fact from which *113
jurisdiction can be inferred. Under the circumstances, claimant, in seeking to recover the money from the county treasury is relegated to an action at law. Cf. Fairmount Eng.Co. v. Montg. Co.,
Order reversed without prejudice.